The Mischa Macpherson Trio performing at Friday night's concert in the Town Hall. Copyright Andy Thompson Photography / ATIMAGES No use without payment.

The Stonehaven Folk Festival is over for another year but we have all the pictures from the past weekend to share with you.

The popular festival, in its 26th year, had plenty going on throughout the town and photgrapher Andy Thompson was on hand to capture these fantastic images.

Sunday's Aqua Ceilidh at Stonehaven Open Air Pool.
Copyright Andy Thompson Photography / ATIMAGES
No use without payment.

There were visitors from Australia, the USA, and Europe as well as much closer to home.

On Friday and Saturday there were two workshops especially for younger musicians; the “Junior Jammers” and the “Youth Big Band.” These were led by festival guest, Mischa Mcpherson.

There were also a wide range of workshops for all ages and abilities, including the Big Sing, the “Wee Big Sing” and Junior Ukulele to Fiddle Master Classes.

The popular World Paper’n’Comb championships were held on Saturday with a Tartan theme, and there were plenty of old and young folk getting in the spirit with over 100 people taking part.

Fiddle workshop by Cameron Ross at John Briggs. Copyright Andy Thompson Photography / ATIMAGES No use without payment.

The Aqua Ceilidh, held on Sunday in the Open Air Pool, helped celebrate 80 years of the popular facility with plenty attending and getting wet from the weather as well as the pool.

A spokesperson for the pool said: “The Stonehaven Folk Festival, together with Sharon Hassan of Gadie Music and the North East Folk Collective, achieved their goal of having 80 musicians playing for the Aqua Ceilidh.

“Although the rain started just five minutes before the first dance, never before have there been so many smiling faces on a rainy morning!

‘‘With 79 musicians playing, Splasher, the Pool’s cuddly dolphin mascot, was given a tambourine and made the band up to 80!”

The World Paper and Comb Championship at St. Bridget's Hall.
The Pushovers on stage.
Copyright Andy Thompson Photography / ATIMAGES
No use without payment.

Festival organiser Charlie West said: “This has probably been our most ambitious weekend with over 50 different events taking place, involving over 90 volunteers working behind the scenes to ensure everything ran smoothly.

“Events included everything from small workshops to the major concerts. It was particularly pleasing to see the youth workshops so well attended, ensuring the music and song will continue in future generations.”

Organisers are already planning for next year’s festival, which will take place from July 9-12.

n More pictures from the folk festival can be found on the Mearns Leader and Kincardineshire Observer websites.

The World Paper and Comb Championship at St. Bridget's Hall. The Clash of the Tartans on stage. Copyright Andy Thompson Photography / ATIMAGES No use without payment.

The World Paper and Comb Championship at St. Bridget's Hall.
Copyright Andy Thompson Photography / ATIMAGES
No use without payment.

Sunday's Aqua Ceilidh at Stonehaven Open Air Pool.
Copyright Andy Thompson Photography / ATIMAGES
No use without payment.

Sunday's Aqua Ceilidh at Stonehaven Open Air Pool. Copyright Andy Thompson Photography / ATIMAGES No use without payment.

Sunday's Aqua Ceilidh at Stonehaven Open Air Pool.
Copyright Andy Thompson Photography / ATIMAGES
No use without payment.

Lady Maisery performing at Friday night's concert in the Town Hall. Copyright Andy Thompson Photography / ATIMAGES No use without payment.

The World Paper and Comb Championship at St. Bridget's Hall. The Pushovers on stage. Copyright Andy Thompson Photography / ATIMAGES No use without payment.

This website and its associated newspaper adheres to the Independent Press Standards Organisation's Editors' Code of Practice.
If you have a complaint about editorial content which relates to inaccuracy or intrusion, then contact the
Editor by clicking here.

If you remain dissatisfied with the response provided then you can contact the IPSO by
clicking here.

Mearns Leader provides news, events and sport features from the Stonehaven area. For the best up to date information relating to Stonehaven and the surrounding areas visit us at Mearns Leader regularly or bookmark this page.

For you to enjoy all the features of this website Mearns Leader requires permission to use cookies.

Find Out More ▼

What is a Cookie?

What is a Flash Cookie?

Can I opt out of receiving Cookies?

About our Cookies

Cookies are small data files which are sent to your browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome etc) from a website you visit. They are stored on your electronic device.

This is a type of cookie which is collected by Adobe Flash media player (it is also called a Local Shared Object) - a piece of software you may already have on your electronic device to help you watch online videos and listen to podcasts.

Yes there are a number of options available, you can set your browser either to reject all cookies, to allow only "trusted" sites to set them, or to only accept them from the site you are currently on.

However, please note - if you block/delete all cookies, some features of our websites, such as remembering your login details, or the site branding for your local newspaper may not function as a result.

The types of cookies we, our ad network and technology partners use are listed below:

Revenue Science ►

A tool used by some of our advertisers to target adverts to you based on pages you have visited in the past. To opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Google Ads ►

Our sites contain advertising from Google; these use cookies to ensure you get adverts relevant to you. You can tailor the type of ads you receive by visiting here or to opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Digital Analytics ►

This is used to help us identify unique visitors to our websites. This data is anonymous and we cannot use this to uniquely identify individuals and their usage of the sites.

Dart for Publishers ►

This comes from our ad serving technology and is used to track how many times you have seen a particular ad on our sites, so that you don't just see one advert but an even spread. This information is not used by us for any other type of audience recording or monitoring.

ComScore ►

ComScore monitor and externally verify our site traffic data for use within the advertising industry. Any data collected is anonymous statistical data and cannot be traced back to an individual.

Local Targeting ►

Our Classified websites (Photos, Motors, Jobs and Property Today) use cookies to ensure you get the correct local newspaper branding and content when you visit them. These cookies store no personally identifiable information.

Grapeshot ►

We use Grapeshot as a contextual targeting technology, allowing us to create custom groups of stories outside out of our usual site navigation. Grapeshot stores the categories of story you have been exposed to. Their privacy policy and opt out option can be accessed here.

Subscriptions Online ►

Our partner for Newspaper subscriptions online stores data from the forms you complete in these to increase the usability of the site and enhance user experience.

Add This ►

Add This provides the social networking widget found in many of our pages. This widget gives you the tools to bookmark our websites, blog, share, tweet and email our content to a friend.